Fingerprints in the Dark
by Kalida
Summary: Harry's first rule has always been: Don't get caught. But he never told him what he shouldn't get caught for. Because "Don't get caught" can also mean "Don't get caught being you". And he never stopped and asked for explanations. Rated T. Dex/Deb. Spoilers for Season 6.
1. Penumbra

**Rating**: T

**Pairing**: Teenage Dex/Deb

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Dexter. Or the song "Volcano" by Damien Rice. No copyright infringement intended.

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**Not a song fic.**

**Possible spoilers for Season 6.**

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**Author's Note**: This is inspired by Deb's confession that she used to sleep in Dexter's room when she was little and used to have nightmares.

I have made Deb and Dex to be a teenager when she used to sleep in Dexter's room (my excuse is artistic freedom).

By the way, if any of you could tell me the age difference between Debra and Dexter, I'd be eternally grateful.

I know, I have yet to complete many fanfics (both in Bones and Dexter fandom) but when an idea emerges in my head, I can't help but start working on it. Yeah, it is a bane.

Anyway, this will be a three-shot. (Or at least that's what I'm hoping it will be). I am also working on two more Dexter fanfics which would (hopefully) be complete soon. Fingers crossed.

If you've got the time, please leave a review. It would brighten my day and I'd be sure to send a little bit of good-will towards your way. ^_^

Hope you enjoy the story.

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**Fingerprints in the Dark**

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_"What I am to you is not real  
What I am to you, you do not need  
What I am to you is not what you mean to me"  
_

_._

_ - "Volcano", by Damien Rice _

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**I.**

**Penumbra**

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The first two times, he doesn't even realise. He is a light sleeper and for the life of him he cannot figure out how he could miss another presence in his room. He wonders whether it is because the presence is so familiar. A presence which is ingrained into his life and hence his mind literally cannot process that it _is_ another person.

He is a light sleeper and he is generally hyperaware of his surroundings. Yet, the first two times, he doesn't even realise.

.

There is some slight shuffling sound that awakes him. He is up on his bed in an instant; it is more of an instinctual reaction than a conscious one. He realises two things immediately. It is the middle of the night and he was dreaming of blood and confined spaces. His palms itch with an alien sense of claustrophobia.

His pupils dilate as his eyes get accustomed to the dark. Soon, he can make out the familiar shadowy edges of his bed, the walls, the door... The door is slightly ajar. The sleep shakes off him right away and he is on alert. He looks at the floor and his mind registers the familiar form on the floor.

He cannot think of any reason why she should be in his bedroom floor. Her crumpled form instigates a fluttery feeling inside his ribcage that he is unfamiliar with. He thinks of corpses and shadows and blood.

Instantly, he crouches down and his hands fly to her neck in an effort to determine whether she still has a pulse.

Something hard collides with his jaw. For a microsecond, pain explodes in his head. He quickly recovers and he is amazed that she has bested him. Any other girl would've slapped, instead Deb throws a punch. He works his jaw, and finds that the pain has subsided already. Concern for her wellbeing showed aside, he raises his arms in mock surrender.

"Ow, Deb! It's me."

Her eyes take a little bit longer to adjust to the darkness and realisation dawns on her. "What the fuck were you _doing_?" She hisses; her words quiet but pointed in the darkness.

"I was checking your pulse, you were the one sprawled on my bedroom floor and-and I should be asking you that." He replies, consciously keeping the decibel level lowered.

She is silent, then. Making no movement, no sound – for all purposes, a marble statue. He looks at her. It is weird. He has never seen her face this close, not in the dark anyway. She is still, her eyes unblinking and he thinks that she looks as if she is made out of granite. A three dimensional shadow and nothing more. A thin soft beam of light slips in through the ajar door and cuts the room. A vertical line of light falls on her cheek, casting the other side of her face in deeper shadows.

He is about to repeat the question, when she mutters something inaudibly.

He whispers back, "What?"

Her eyebrows furrow, a sign of irritation and she is no longer a granite statue. "I said, I had a nightmare." She bites her lips in an uncharacteristic sign of worry. "Can I, can I sleep here, on the floor?"

He is perplexed. He doesn't know the appropriate response to this. Harry never taught him how to react in this situation. "Er... Yes?" It comes out more like a question than a response, but Debra is satisfied.

"Okay, good night." She says and promptly lies back down.

He feels discomfited.

It is with a niggling sensation of unease that he climbs back onto his bed and lies down.

It is only days later that it occurs to him that he could've offered his bed to her like a chivalrous young man and taken the floor in her stead. But by then, they both had grown accustomed to this pattern and he did not wish to disturb status quo.

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It is after the first week that he gets a night light for his room. He is a light sleeper and the sepia tinged light isn't doing any favours to his erratic sleep patterns. But he had noticed that despite being near his 'comforting presence' (her words, not his), Deb seemed to be tossing and turning in her sleep trying to escape the ethereal snippets of her nightmares. The night light seems to help her. He has done greater sacrifices trying to be good brother that this one doesn't even make the list.

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It is somewhere in the middle of the second week that she wakes him up for the first time.

He was in ankle-deep in crimson blood. Usually blood excites him but now he feels sick and woozy. The thick, warm liquid was sticking to his foot like some sugary syrup. He could feel slight tendrils of coagulated blood forming between his toes, slippery and strong like tendons. The syrupy blood was coating his feet, permeating into his skin, seeping into his muscles... when a _hand_, cold as that of a corpse, grasps his foot and shakes him-

He startles awake.

There is an actual solid hand wrapped around his ankle. Then he hears a hushed voice, "Dex, it's me!"

He isn't sweating or panting. He shows no signs that he was having a nightmare. (He isn't sure whether this qualifies as a nightmare considering the fact that what he daydreams about isn't really _that_ different).

His leg shakes once more, in time with a slightly whiny voice, "Dex."

He recovers from his stupor and asks, "What?" His voice comes out steady yet hushed and he is rather proud of the feat.

She pouts. "I can't sleep."

He repeats his favourite mantra again and again in his head. _I will not kill my sister. I will not kill my sister. I will __**not**__ kill my sister. _

"Dex." She says again, as if somehow he was to provide her with a solution.

_I will not kill Deb_. "What am I supposed to do about that, Deb?" He answers, his tone laced with exasperation.

He can only see from her neck and upwards, the bed blocking the rest of the view. The soft light has set half her face and neck aglow, plunging the rest into shadows. She looks as if she has stepped out from an old photograph. Her green eyes appear wide and glazed as she asks with palpable hope, "Can we talk?"

He sighs in resignation (and a hint of affection). "Sure, why not?" He answers. It is only half-sarcastic.

.

That is how the ritual started. (This is the ritual before _The Ritual_ started). She comes and sleeps on his bedroom floor. He switches the night light on for no apparent reasons. On most nights, they just sleep. And early in the morning, Dexter wakes up first, nudges Debra awake with his foot and she slinks back to her room. On some nights, when she can't sleep, she talks. She talks on and on again about everything and nothing. Sometimes he listens. Sometimes he pretends that he is listening and mumbles '_uh-huh_'s and '_mm-hmm_'s at appropriate intervals. Sometimes he actually listens and talks too. He talks about things that are metaphorical and not what they seem. He talks about things that are tangential to their lives. Yet on rare occasions, he does talk about literal things too.

His sounds different, he realises. His voice is different when he talks during this nightly ritual. Of course, he talks in hushed tones, several octaves lower than normal, but there is something more. There is a smidge of trueness in his voice that is nonexistent during daytime. The slight rawness in his words that makes them more heartfelt. He always fancied himself a creature of the night – inspired by the creamy moon and deep shadows of the night. He realises that it is quite true. There is an honesty about him at night that is simply inconceivable during the daylight.

Her voice is quite different too. There are fewer expletives and her tones tend to have a lulling effect. Her hushed whispers seem to infuse the atmosphere with a sense of humid warmth. Like valium.

Her voice saturates the conversation and leaves the air with a wet taste. Her words, groggy and sleepy, yet caring, seem to creep up the bed and cocoon him, slowly seeping away and absorbing any residual discomfiture.

.

It is another such nightly ritual and Deb keeps on talking about inane things and Dexter is only half-listening, mumbling 'mm-hmm's and 'uh-huh's at the right times. He is feeling restless and on edge and it has been a long time since he hunted anything.

He presses the thumb of his right hand onto his other wrist and the steady dup-lup of blood calms him a little bit.

He is feeling jittery enough that Deb's usually comforting voice is grating on his patience right now. Each word she says seems to snag at some neuron and pull, fraying his sanity, a little by little. His thumbnail slowly scratches invisible patterns on his wrist.

There is a tremor, most likely resulting from Deb kicking the foot of his bed.

"Dex, are you listening?"

"Wh-What?" He asks, trying to appear (non-murderous and) attentive.

Hearing the annoyed harrumph from Deb, it is fairly probable that he didn't succeed.

"Dex..." She hesitates. "If I tell you something, can you promise to not tell Dad?"

He couldn't think up of a reason why he would tell anything she tells to Harry. He shrugs, "Yeah, okay."

She sits up on the floor; her movements quick and frantic, but graceful like that of a swan. Even in the half-dark he could see the seriousness in her face. She purses her lips into a thin line and deliberates over something. Then, she regards him with solemn eyes, before prompting, "You have to _swear_."

It is the easiest thing to do. He can lie as easily as he can plunge a knife into the body of a wounded animal. He replies, whispering, "I swear."

There is a gleam in her eyes as she says the next sentence. A gleam which he would years later recognise as a mark of her stubbornness. With a determined (yet excited) air she declares, "I know what I wanna be when I grow up." She grins. "I am going to be a cop!"

.

Sure enough, Dexter lasted eleven days before he blurted this out to Harry. In his defence, he was returning from a 'hunting trip' with Harry and was feeling all kinds of _euphoric_.

Consequently, Harry and his daughter had a 'heated discussion' on career choices.

Unfortunately though, Deb had inherited her streaks of determination from her father and both severely lacked any traits of tact. Harry thought his daughter to be too young to be making any such choices and outright told her it was just a whimsical fancy that would pass. Deb let her father know that she was grown enough and mature enough and it is time that he stopped treating her with kiddie-gloves. And if he could never spare a second of his precious time to know how his daughter was doing, he wasn't in a position to lecture her. She raved and panted with her hair flying about and her mad eyes full of rejection and anger.

_I am not a kid anymore, Dad. You would have noticed that if you occasionally spared a glance towards me._ – She had said, her voice acerbic. This momentarily stunned her father speechless and she smirked, her face a portrayal of victory and bitterness. Unable to manage a teenage daughter in rage, Harry asked his daughter to go back to her room. Deb, reeling slightly from her victory, ready to come up with another retort, looked at her brother. She had expected support, instead she found Dex with downcast eyes looking at the ground, being Harry's obedient little boy. She let out a sigh of disbelief. Of betrayal... Soon, Harry and Deb were in shouting match, round two, but victory went to her father.

She trudged up the stairs and into her room, her eyes glistening with tears and betrayal and her ears ringing with words such as _immature, unsuitable and disappointment._

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**A/N: **To be continued. Could you please take the time to leave a review? :)


	2. Event Horizon

**Rating**: T

**Pairing**: Teenage Dex/Deb

**Characters:** Harry, Dexter, Debra

**Warning: **Possible incestual themes. And violence.

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**Disclaimer**: I do not own Dexter. Or the song "Charlie Brown" by Coldplay. No copyright infringement intended.

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**Not a song fic.**

**Possible spoilers for Season 6.**

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**A/N: **Okay, so I have always had this idea of teenage Dex rebelling against Harry. I know that Dex is actually pretty obedient and considers Harry as basically his God. But I can't help but wonder that in every family, during teenage years the son rebels against their father, in a subconscious attempt to wield power. Dex being a person with psychopathic tendencies would a_ctually_ tend to rebel more rather than less, don't you think?

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And oh, a **point of clarification**, sleeper hold/blood choke is the hold that Dexter uses to make his victims unconscious. It cuts off blood flow through carotid arteries and jugular veins and is relatively painless if applied properly.

Whereas, an air choke, constricts the trachea and windpipe, cuts off air supply, can cause asphyxia, is extremely painful and may even cause broken larynx.

In the show, while showing Dexter's childhood memories, Harry is shown to implement an air choke on Dex when he tries to kill the bully "Josh".

So, I have kind of used that theme here.

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And yes, I know that Dexter and Debra are not biological brother and sister and hence it is not _really_ incest. But people are kinda crazy and tend to take it so. O_o

And yeah, I knew that Michael C. Hall (Dexter) and Jennifer Carpenter (Debra) were married for a short while. No wonder they have such great on-screen chemistry! :)

Thanks to each and every person who reviewed. Thank you so much, it made my day and I have sent a lot of goodwill along your way. I'm sorry I couldn't reply back individually.

Thanks to everyone who favorited my story as well. I'm so flattered. *blushes*

If you could leave a review too, I'd be eternally grateful. ^_^

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I know, that it is a very late update, but hopefully it is compensated by this _very long_ chapter (and hopefully you are not put off by the length). I'll try to update the next chapter faster.

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Hope you enjoy the story. And reviews please...

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**II. Event Horizon**

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"_And my scarecrow dreams,  
When they smashed my heart into smithereens,  
Be a bright red rose come bursting the concrete._

_We'll run wild,  
We'll be glowing in the dark."_

_- "Charlie Brown", by Coldplay  
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_._

It has been five days. Five days since she slept on his bedroom floor or woke up in the middle of the night to talk about inconsequential things.

It didn't bother him.

At first.

He liked having the room to himself and being able to sleep with the lights off. He liked being able to sleep without being shaken awake to talk in the middle of the night. He liked his space.

But then as Day Three turned to _Day Four _and it slowly turned to _Day Five,_ he slowly found his normal composed self wavering.

It was just the fact that the ritual was disrupted. That's all. He had always been a neat-freak, always wanted his things arranged and organised, was always punctual. He liked the details. He liked his rituals. It was only natural that he'd feel unsettled, when his ritual was disrupted.

Deb still talks to him, in an overtly and painfully polite way. She still asks him to pass a glass of water or to lower the volume of TV. She still talks to him, with blank eyes and toneless voice.

There were no expletives. No _fuck_s or _shit_s sprinkled intermittently in every conversation; that oddly used to make the conversation more convivial than hostile.

Now her voice is flat, her face expressionless and her eyes are steely and sharp and her breath cold.

Like a ventriloquist's dummy.

He is strangely troubled by this.

She is not the dummy. She never was. She is **not** the animated mannequin who dons the skin of a human and pretends to be one. It is _him_ who is the mannequin. And this disturbs him... this reversal of roles. If Deb did not soon become her normal human self again, there was something seriously wrong with world.

And he liked order in his world.

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Their house has shrunk and shrivelled. There is a density in the air that isn't quite anger or frustration. It is _more_. He doesn't know what it is. But whatever it is, it is coating the skin of his lungs and evoking vestigial amounts of claustrophobia. He thinks that they are a science experiment, three completely different entities from different habitats put together to observe how they'd interact and react with one another.

The air has poisoned Harry too. His frustration is overweighing his exhaustion; rather than it being the other way around. He lurks about the house with an incessant scowl in his face, with worry lines etching his forehead, the reality of being a widower with a teenage daughter and a (psychopathic) son apparently wearing him down and aggravating him simultaneously. He looks dauntingly like a gargoyle, dark, stony and gloomy and holding secrets heavier than his heart could bear.

Deb seems different. There is a different air about her now that she has transformed the atmosphere of her home. She flicks her tongue and poisons the air. She moves quietly, yet with conviction. Her eyes are a deadly green and with a placid face, she looks like a sphinx. A creature of immense power somehow condensed and reduced to a stony rubble, yet roaming the earth with secrets beneath her tongue; looking as if she is ready to utter a riddle and gobble you up at a moment's notice.

But her questions never come.

He feels like Pinocchio, stunted and wooden and weak and wanting to be something that he's not. He feels like an irrelevant chess piece, like a piece of drift wood caught between the swirling vortices of two maelstroms. Neither there nor here. But dragged left and right through the sheer force of gravity.

He coughs.

The sickness in his lungs never goes away.

A crude black flaky poison coating the walls of wet pink lungs.

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There are moments when Dexter feels like one of them would snap...

The three of them are teetering along the edge of some imperceptible, inevitable apocalypse. All it takes is one small step more.

Harry's shoulders keep on drooping as if he cannot handle the weight of his life anymore; his eyes weary and forlorn and he gazes at his daughter as if she is a foreign entity.

This is not his little girl. This is not the little girl whom he gave piggy back rides. This is not the little girl who adored him. This is someone else entirely. A stranger. Somebody with eyes full of hate and snarky words and caustic voice. He doesn't know how she has changed so much just as he blinked.

His wife would've known how to deal with her. But his wife is no more and he is left to deal with two teenagers. He is grateful that at least Dexter listens to him. He doesn't know what he has done to deserve such anger, such hate, from his daughter. He has to train Dex. He _has to_. God knows what would happen otherwise. It was for the greater good. It was for her own good! She may never realise it though; and that's the burden he has to carry.

It is something he knew from the beginning and he always thought that it is a sacrifice he was willing to make. But these days are tough. Debra looks at him as if he is a monster wielding her father's skin and he keeps on telling himself that it is just a phase; that this too will pass.

He looks at Dex, his obedient son (_who is not his son_), his perfect pupil... Of course, there are temptations but Dexter wouldn't deviate from his Code. This is his gift to Debra. This is his gift to the world.

A psychopath who would've killed indiscriminately, massacred people, who would've bathed in the blood of innocents is reigned in, tamed and brought to the path of justice and righteousness, albeit skewed justice, by him. This is his _glorious_ gift to the world.

He looks at Dex and where he would've seen obedience and respect, he sees a quiet resoluteness. And his thoughts falter like the staggering steps of a drunkard.

He understands Debra's vehemence; it is his burden to carry. But to feel like he lost Dex's unquestioning loyalty sets him on edge.

Debra is talking to him, some petty argument quickly escalating and reaching apocalyptic proportions. Dexter watches by the sidelines like a morbid voyeur. Debra makes some offhand command about how no one in her family understands her.

Dex looks at Debra guiltily, and this is the appropriate response, he is proud of Dex. But then when Dex turns his eyes to Harry, there is no silent request for his approval (_Did I fake it properly, Dad?_).

Instead his face has a carefully schooled blank expression. The expression that Harry had taught him, but to see it reproduced towards him is _disturbing_.

And then, Debra swears.

Something snaps inside Harry and he tells her, _You better watch your mouth_. And it comes out as a threat. Not just a paternal threat, but a threat. His thoughts (on Deb and Dex and sacrifices and the crosses he has to bear) twist his intentions and the words inside his mouth are skewed and the tone varied. He had just meant to admonish her but his twisted thoughts and twisted tongue warp it into a threat.

Debra immediately clamps her mouth shut, astonished. Harry feels vaguely guilty, these exhausting levels of frustration wearing down on him like acid rain. He looks at Debra; she looks slightly scared but with eyes full of protest. This is expected. The rebelling teenage daughter. It's when he accidently glances at Dex that he gets the shock of his life. Something flashes in Dexter's eyes. Something very real and tangible... Something very much like feelings. Something very much like anger. And then it is gone. His face is once again the carefully constructed mask of stoicism. It is the Dexter he knows. But for a moment Dexter was someone else. Somebody he did not know.

And then Debra says something stupid like _I wish Mom was alive and you were dead instead!_ and storms off the room. And he feels like he is drowning... Drowning in a changing reality – a reality in which his kids are not his own and they are somebody else, they are strangers, they are the ghost of his many unintended sins... And all his knowledge might just be wrong.

The weight which he was fine with carrying for years suddenly becomes intolerable, unbearable and all he can think is _This cannot be my life_ and then there is anger and resignation infecting his blood and there is migraine starting to bloom on the back of his eyes and... and...

He could've sworn, _he could've sworn_, that even under his stoic face there is a little bit of resentment in Dexter's eyes instead of the usual respect and steadfast loyalty. There is a hidden smirk playing under the blank face.

And for a moment, he wishes he never rescued that kid from the bloody container.

There are moments when Dexter feels like one of them would snap...

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It is on Day Six that Dexter finally loses his composure.

There is something disquieting suffocating him and he has these flashes of daydreams in which the walls of their house ooze blood. Something inside him coils and uncoils repeatedly and he feels disoriented.

Debra is passing by him without a spare glance, as if he is just a poster on the wall, when his words trip over themselves and he mutters, "I'm sorry."

Her eyes lock onto his face and she replies in an even tone, "No, you're not."

He doesn't know what _sorry_ feels like, but he insists, "Yes, I am."

She scoffs, "No, you're _not_."

He stays silent. He doesn't know how to respond to this. Words evade him like flickering mirages in the desert sun. He stares at the floor.

She laughs, bitterly, "Figures." And starts walking away.

He feels something akin to desperation claw at his ribcage. He _needs_ his ritual. She doesn't _understand_. He tries to catch her wrist and says, "Deb, please-"

And suddenly... She turns around and shoves him hard on his chest. He loses his footing and stumbles back onto the wall. His shoulders take most of the impact, little tendrils of pain shooting down his neck and spine. And for a second he wants to hit her. He mostly thinks of Deb as his little sister that he forgets how strong she has become.

Her face is drenched with fury and a thousand other unnamed emotions. She steps closer to him, every muscle in her body screaming with anger and betrayal. This Deb and the Deb on his bedroom floor are two entirely different people.

Hell's wrath and Heaven's solace.

Her eyes are dangerous and flashes like lightning, her words sonorous as thunder. "Fuck you." She says. "Fuck you. You and your self-righteous bullshit!" She doesn't shout, rather she hisses.

Her voice is like fierce suppressed steam scalding his thoughts and skin.

He cannot deal with this. Not unless he has a knife.

There is something rising inside him, a snake slowly climbing through his spine. He wants to push back.

"Deb, I'm sorry-"

"No. You. are. not!" She hisses between her teeth with a force that shakes him. He can feel her acidic breath on his face.

It is rising.

"It-it" He stutters, he hates stuttering. "It wasn't like that. I didn't mean to-"

A bitter grin mars her face. "You do not care."

He is silenced. His tongue is stuck in a barb wire.

"I finally figured it out, you do not care." She smirks.

He wants to shut her up. His eyes are turning darker and she notices, but she isn't afraid.

"You couldn't stand up for _once_ in your life, could you?" She taunts.

Words are leaking out of his mind, evacuating his brain and his hands furl into fists. "It's not like-"

"You'd never refute _Daddy_." She states, her voice mocking. "How could you?" The words are stretched in a sing-song tone, "You are Daddy's good little _boy_. Dexter the Dutiful."

His composure fractures, his hands unfurl and he sneers, "Then, what are _you_?" _The prodigal daughter? _And he immediately regrets it.

She almost takes a step back, something slipping off her face before she recovers and she retorts, "Whatever _I_ am, I am _not_ a little tin soldier."

He can't really answer to that; he wheezes, lungs seizing half-way.

Something changes.

Deb must've noticed something in his face that indicates that she crossed an invisible line.

She takes a step back and licks her lips. She looks vaguely apologetic and he wonders why. Her lips part as if to say something like _sorry_ and then close shut, suddenly. Her hand tucks away an errant piece of her hair that was threatening to fall into her eyes. She nods slightly and then walks away.

He stares down the spot that she just vacated. He doesn't know why, but the air feels like it is stretched thin and he has difficulty breathing. He gapes like a fish at the empty spot. There is _nothing_ _there_.

He doesn't move.

The little tin soldier.

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It has been a week since that day.

Day Thirteen.

The venom in the air has not dissipated. In fact it grows thicker and thicker like acrid smog clouding an entire city. He feels dusty and itchy and dry and he keeps on scratching his palms and he imagines little slivers of skin flying through the air. It is like a desert, harsh and unforgiving and seemingly endless. There are no mirages, no oases, no wet comfort, no humid warmth, just plain pitiless heat. He feels that there are insects crawling up his leg. It is _irritating_.

He keeps on imagining his clay masks drying in the heat and crumbling to dust. He keeps on imagining dried up blood that crack and flake like rust. This is grating on his control. He decides that he doesn't like this.

Thirteen days is just too much. Too long to go without a ritual.

_Day Thirteen_. The Unholy Day.

Tonight is the night. The night for another practice session with Harry. He had already perfected his point of attack. Now, he was trying to perfect his blood choke. Deb not sleeping on his bedroom floor has the unexpected advantage of giving him the freedom to sneak out and practice with Harry.

He waits in silence in the dark. His hands are sweaty. The silhouettes of sleeping objects and shadows are enveloping him and he feels like he is home. Harry opens the refrigerator and searches for what is possibly a midnight snack.

He watches the soulless fluorescent light of the refrigerator illuminate Harry's face. His facial features and contours infinitely defined in the near black-white contrast between the guileless light and surreptitious shadows. His figure casting huge sharp shadows on the yellow walls.

"_I can't believe I finally got you. I won."_

"_This isn't a game Dexter."_

"_No, I know." He smiles._

"_It's not supposed to be fun."_

"_Yeah, yeah. I-"_

"_Do you think I wanna teach you these things? This is the only way I know how to keep you out of an electric chair."_

His hands aren't sweaty anymore.

Harry bends over to take something from the lower shelf. The light enveloping him like a freakish white halo. Harry looks different in this light. He looks like the glare of a redemptive angel.

His hands aren't sweaty anymore.

There is a flash of something red like blood behind his eyes and suddenly something snaps inside. Thoughts of thirteen and blood and crumbling clay masks and rust flit through his mind and then he is moving. Or rather his body is moving. His mind is some detached entity watching the proceedings with fascination. All his actions are instinctual... visceral.

Within a blink, he is behind Harry and he puts his arm around Harry's neck in one swift move, the crook of his elbow over the midline of his neck. He pinches his arm together using his free hand.

He hears a sound. Not a groan, not a growl. But this guttural sound – something signifying an intense frustration and maybe even dismay.

He realises that _he_ made the sound. He doesn't really understand why.

Something is different. Something is different this practice session. Maybe instead of the exhilarating thrill he feels something entirely different right now. Maybe because Harry somehow understands it too.

He pinches his arms tighter and imagines carotid arteries getting compressed. Jugular veins in Harry's neck slowly getting squished. His arms tighten even further.

All Harry has to do is tap his forearm and ask Dexter to stop, but he doesn't. He claws and pulls at Dexter's arm but doesn't tap.

Dexter can hear his breathing. That is all that he can hear. This loud whooshing sound echoing against the shadows. Too incredibly loud in the night, like a coughing steam engine. His hot breath blowing against Harry's ears and Harry groaning but never tapping or asking him to stop.

He presses harder.

And he realises, this is something else utterly. This isn't a practice session. Not anymore. This is something... _more_.

His thoughts are scattered like a million stars. This proves to be his downfall. Somehow their positions are reversed and he doesn't even know how.

Suddenly Harry is at his back, right arm around his neck, pressing backwards using his left. Harry's forearm is digging into his neck and he chokes. He should say, _Dad, Stop._ And this would be over and then Harry would tell him where he went wrong and advise him to stronger, more vigilant, more concentrated... just be _more_.

But he doesn't say it.

And it is beyond all rational explanations.

His survival instinct should kick in if nothing else. He should simply give in to Harry and everything would be alright.

But he doesn't.

Harry arms press harder and he can't _breathe_. He gasps, his mouth wide open like a gaping fish but no air enters his lungs. He thinks of tongues and poison and black flakes and venom in the air and he doesn't know why.

The world is exploding into little spots of bright colour behind his eyes and all he has to do is tap Harry's forearm. Instead, he claws at it, his blunt short nails peeling off the epidermis leaving a tiny wetness of blood under his fingernails.

He gasps and gasps.

His nails dig into the arm but the firm strength of Harry is not easy to defeat and his brain is going into panic mode. Harry hisses an angry whisper that sounds suspiciously like _Dexter!_ Into his ear and every rational, logical, sensible part of him wants to give in but there is some tiny little thing that prohibits him to do so.

He spasms and convulses.

His back bumps forcefully into the solid chest of Harry but to no avail. He feels hot, so very hot... combustible. The bulk of Harry radiating an intense heat that he simply cannot handle.

He coughs and gasps. But he can't get air into his lungs.

He thinks of ruptured trachea and fractured larynxes. He thinks of how he taught the spelling of A-S-P-H-Y-X-I-A to Deb when they were much younger.

Pain shoots through every inch of his nerves and he convulses, his lanky body jerking into the solid one of his father.

Air... He needs air. His lungs are crumpled and desiccated. He needs air...

His hands are grasping at the iron-like hands of Harry. He tries to think of self-defense. He tries to think of ji-jitsu. But it is of no use. He is already oxygen-deprived for long enough that his mind is in full out panic mode. He can't think of anything. All he can do is clutch, grab and pull at Harry's arms. His brain implodes into thousands and thousands of frissons of pain.

_Dexter..._ Harry growls. And this time it is both a warning and a plea. Give in. Just tap.

And his mind is chorusing over and over again – give in. Give in. _Give in._ **Give in**. GIVE IN!

Agony injects through this cacophony of thoughts. He chokes. Air feels like a rough rasping thing right now.

He throat seizes up.

His vision slightly blurs at the edges.

His feet slip and slide over the cold glazed tiled floor...

So, this is how it ends. He just wonders why his sense of self-preservation, why his survival instincts doesn't kick in.

He gasps and gasps.

His lungs are burning. His tongue is drier than the sun and stuck to the roof of his mouth. His sweat-slicked hair keeps prickling his eyes. Harry's warmth suffocates him like an anaconda. It is unbearable hot... He is burning alive.

The panicked voice engulfs them both as a sudden sleet of frozen water. The beautiful and wet voice from the end of the room – "Dad? Dex? Wh-What's going on?"

The cold voice of Debra.

* * *

.

Any other day, Harry would have had a ready set of lies to give his daughter. After all, it isn't the first time he would be lying to her and it sure as hell isn't the last time. Any other day...

But Harry finds that his words are vanishing from his throat and mind, going up in little puffs of smoke. He had just tried to choke the living hell out of his adopted son only to be caught by his biological daughter. What can he possibly tell her?

Something had been off during the whole day. Like it was a wary premonition of what was going to happen.

This absolute horror of a day!

Any other time, Harry could easily concoct a set of lies that would leave Debra convinced. But not then. Because it had not been a normal practice session. Had it been, he may have been able to lie. But it had not been a normal practice session and he had somehow lost his cool and he had actually choked Dexter. His son.

He wanted to inflict pain. He wanted to inflict at least an ounce of all the misery the wretched boy brought into his life.

For a fraction of a second, he actually wanted to kill Dexter.

He wanted to see that absolute faith and steadfast unquestioning loyalty in Dex's eyes once more.

He wanted his obedient son back.

He used air choke instead of the sleeper hold so that it would be painful. It would be agonising. So that Dexter would _yield_.

It was not a normal practice session and Harry was already rattled and disquieted. He does not like to think of these things. He can't even come up with an excuse. He can't even come up with a lie.

What will he tell Debra?

His hands are trembling and a hundred different excuses trip over themselves inside his brain. His neurons are entangled and synapses fired.

This is not happening! Maybe it is all a dream. This can't be happening.

He can feel his chest heaving with the effort. All rational thoughts and air escaping him. The ready set of excuses he always carried around in his brain, should they be caught, has disintegrated into thin air... Like his control just a few moments ago.

This cannot be happening.

He mumbles, something completely inane like, "Are-Are you okay son?"

While Dex is gulping down huge amounts of air, gasping and staring at the floor with his eyes unfocussed. One of his hands was clutching the fabric of his t-shirt at his chest while the other was outstretched trying to regain his balance as he stumbled.

"I'm okay." Dexter wheezes.

"Yeah." He gulps "Uh. You-you... er, you should get some sleep. Goodnight then." He mutters before walking out of the room. He feels slightly guilty for leaving Dex to deal with Debra and the aftermath. It would be tough to lie when caught red-handed.

_Psychopaths are better liars anyway._ He tells himself.

The refrigerator door is ajar. The eerie white light of the refrigerator still douses half of the room in a condescending white light, plunging the rest into truthful black shows.

* * *

.

"Dex?" She asks, her voice incredibly afraid. Almost as if she's not sure whether she wants answers.

He doesn't answer. He is still bent over with a hand grasping the t-shirt in front of his chest in a death grip. He daren't answer, instead concentrates on getting air into his scoured lungs. His frantic breaths would hopefully be enough.

And then there are cold petite hands gripping his shoulders and straightening him. He doesn't really have the strength to stand up yet, his brain suffused in panic and oxygen. She seems to have understood it and holds him up, supporting his weight using her lanky but strong arms.

He blinks a few times; the chorus of fear that was echoing in his head is slowly fading. He licks his lips and looks up to find that Deb is standing so very close to him. There are fearful tears filling her eyes and there is so much of _some_ feeling in her eyes that he quickly averts his eyes.

"Dex?" She asks gain, her voice trembling. Her voice having so much of _something_ that he can't bear it. He wants to push her away and abscond. Run away from this room, this house like Harry did. He has this immense thing inside his brain that tells him to escape. This immense thing that feels suspiciously like instinct.

This shouldn't affect him so.

He shouldn't be affected by anything at all, really. But something about the combination of soulless fluorescent lights, and comforting shadows, and coldness, and frissons of scorching agony that shoot through one's nerves, and thin not-quite-there air, and feet slipping through smooth tiles, and long brown hair, and tearful eyes with so much concern affect him.

It affects him greatly.

Her hands slide up his shoulder and cup his neck and she forces him to meet her gaze. She draws nearer, pressing into his personal space and this should irritate him, but it doesn't. Her face is entrenched in shock and confusion and misery and anger. But her eyes are brimming with concern. She is staring at him intently, with all of world's questions in her eyes, and he stares back with his eyes blank. Her hands are sweaty and cold against his neck, her fingers involuntarily tracing small patterns on his injured skin.

"Dex." She prompts him again, in an agonized voice, apparently incapable of forming any other word at the moment.

His chest is still heaving and he finds that under her intense stare he still cannot breathe, for reasons unknown. She is standing so close; her head barely reaching his nose. He is taller than her. A few inches forward and their chests would brush together. He tries to breathe. Air enters his lungs, yet he still feels choked.

A tightening of the hand at his neck reminds him that he was asked a question. Or something like a question.

"I thought you weren't talking to me." The words slip past his lips before he can think. And he knows it is not an answer. It is not what she wants.

Disbelief colours her face and she almost laughs. "Shut up!" Her gaze falls downwards to his neck and he holds his breath instinctively. In an aggrieved voice, she finally manages to ask, "Dex, what the fu-"

She is interrupted by a distressed noise. He realises that he made it. This unspoken plea to let it be, to never ask those questions. He _could_ answer with a hundred lies, but for the first time in his life, he doesn't _want_ to. Not now. Not right now...

Her gaze flicks to the doorway behind him and he understands that she is contemplating leaving him here and going after Harry and demanding an explanation. He nearly _prays_ that she'd leave him and go. Then, Harry can deal with this mess and he can go to his room and pretend this never happened. He wishes that she'd go and demand an explanation even though he knows that she will not.

Concern overrides anger and her look falls on him once again. She is, obviously, staying. She doesn't ask any questions though. She never asks questions unless he wants her to.

She just stands her with her hands on his neck, watching his face as if it would provide her with answers.

Both of them are standing like statues in the middle of the room.

He is surprisingly calm now; unblinking. Going from full out panic and frenetic clawing for your life to a more quiescent kind of fear – all pervading and all consuming – in a matter of seconds. He is still; but there is a feeling very much like alarm, very much like dread bubbling up inside his ribcage. It tires him – this sudden change.

He doesn't react well to emotions much less emotional fluctuations.

But Deb is standing in front of him, so close. With eyes so full of concern and love, even after hating his existence for thirteen days. Her right hand slowly slithers around to the nape of his neck, the tips of her fingers entrenched in his sweat-slicked unruly hair. Her left hand moves across his neck as she inspects him for damage.

Her hands are so very cold, a harsh contrast to Harry's heat. Almost as cold as that of a corpse. He imagines a corpse with blue skin and wet breath examining him in the dead of the night. It is, oddly, so very comforting.

Her eyes are fixed on his neck, scrutinizing the skin for bruises, for wounds.

The heel of her palm rests on his collarbone. Bone against bone and the strength of it, the solid contact seems to fix him down to Earth. Bring back gravity to him; grounding his thoughts that flew away.

Her fingers move, skimming over his skin and he can hardly feel her. Her barely-there-touch makes his body freeze. He tilts his head slightly away from her. It just bares his throat more and stretches his tendons.

There are no words anymore. He can hear the slow whir of the ceiling fan, constant and periodic, like heartbeat. There is also a buzzing sound from the refrigerator filling the room. He cannot hear himself breathe. Maybe it is because he is somehow physically incapable to do so right now. He cannot hear her breaths either, but he can feel it. The hot air falling on his tense muscles, smoothing over his sweaty skin. The only source of heat in the room.

He wants to tell her that he is okay, he's alright and she needn't worry about him and then flee from her grip and get out of the damn room. But he can't speak, he can't move, every muscle is tense, every thought redundant; his ataxic body betraying him.

He vaguely feels like a prey rather than a predator.

She is not even looking at him anymore, just staring at his throat, which her father had squeezed so intently a few minutes before. She is looking at him as if he were an object, staring transfixed at his skin. Her hands move out of their own accord. This ghostly thing with its own will.

She thumbs his collarbone, a small fleshy pressure against skin and bone, and he nearly whimpers. He, strangely, feels like he is underwater, not drowning, but underwater.

An aquatic creature floating in a viscous fluid watching as tiny bubbles of air (life) float up all about him. He is somehow able to acquire oxygen but not able to process it. Everything is silent and moves slowly as if he was put under a spell.

The blood and adrenaline that was rushing through his veins, halts and moves languorously. He almost feels sleepy. A torpid flow with a lulling effect, which is in direct contradiction to his heartbeat. As her fingers press down on his jugular vein, his pulse splinters and fractures.

He swallows around the silence in his throat and then suddenly, her thumb is pressing down on his Adam's apple which bobs up and down. Her cold hands testing the hardness of it. She slightly scratches her nail over it and his breath hitches. He looks down to see that she is looking up and _into_ his eyes. Her incredibly green eyes glowing like that of a cat's in the night and being the only thing of colour in the monochrome grey shadows.

And, he can't breathe, dammit! A part of his mind provides answers – just expand your chest, inhale, hold, exhale – but due to an inexplicable reason, he can't.

And she keeps looking into his eyes, as the hand at the nape of his neck, slides up and fingers his spiky wet hair.

She keeps looking into his eyes as her thumb puts the slightest pressure on his Adam's apple. Slides up the incline, makes a small circle at the tip and slides back down. There should be a fingerprint there. A perfect fingerprint... Each tiny whorl of her finger etched eternally into his skin. An evidence of her touch marking his neck. Her mark embedded into his skin, flesh and bone... into his very being. Fingerprints which would be visible even in the dark; glowing with a diffusive light.

He doesn't dare to breathe.

She flicks her fingers. The pad of fingers is drawing a straight line down his throat, moving over the taut tendons; testing its tightness and tension. Then her light touches are drawing invisible patterns across the pale canvass of his neck. Diaphanous and delicate spider-webs patterns of sweat being sketched onto his clammy skin. His skin feels like a brittle thing which would rip under the slightest provocation.

He can't look away from her eyes. A vacuum is created inside of him; all his internal organs squished to walls of his body to make room for this unnamed feeling, which is light and rising, yet heavy to bear.

There is something extremely delicate about this moment, like the flutter of a moth's wings. Even, he comprehends it; though he doesn't know _why_.

Her nails slightly scrape across his skin; making a slight nick on his tendon, a sliver of his skin peeled off... and he flinches.

He flinches. Suddenly snapping out of the horrid trance and stepping back.

All the air in the world rapidly rushes into his lungs and the vacuum inside him, this sudden whoosh that leaves him disoriented yet staggering in clarity. The world snaps back into his view, his tunnel vision cured in a fraction of second. It is as if he was abruptly doused with ice cold water and he stumbles back.

He breathes out, startled, "Deb!"

There is no response and he doesn't wait for one. There is still residual haziness and he needs to get out as soon as possible. He climbs the stairs two steps at a time. He looks down from top of the stairs and sees her still standing frozen in the dark. She is suspended in time, unreal, ethereal, an airy creature that could only exist in the dark.

He is panting, visions flitting across his retina, but pays it no heed and goes to his room and slams the door shut.

* * *

.

The next day he wakes up, quite irrationally expecting to find little neon fingerprints scattered over his neck. This glowing evidence of a thousand wrong things. But he looks just like he looks every other day.

It is like every other day. There is an increased level of tension, but it is not suffocating. He doesn't know what Deb did after he left. Did she seek out Harry and demand an explanation? Did she figure out his secrets on her own?

He doesn't know.

But there is no acknowledgement of the events which occurred last night. Everybody sits at the table, and is civil to each other. Though there is an absolute lack of eye-contact. For reasons unknown to him, he has worn a turtleneck (despite the hot weather), and he can feel both Deb's and Harry's eyes on him. He has never felt more exposed.

It is almost as if he had conjured up with his infinite imagination all the events of previous night. Yet... yet Deb sits between him and Harry, giving guarded looks at her father every few seconds, her shoulders tense. Harry stares down, his face a carefully schooled expression of blankness but his eyes filled with guilt.

A secret of such proportions seems impossible to avoid, but Morgan household is formed by pretence and lies and carefully worded sentences and things hidden in plain sight and if a secret could survive anywhere, it would be here.

That night Deb sleeps on his bedroom floor. The fight apparently forgotten and forgiven.

He recognizes that it is her way of trying to protect him. He thinks that it is absurd. He doesn't need protection. He is the predator, not the prey. It is people like him the world needs protection from him. The whole idea and logic behind Deb's actions is faulty and stupid and... absurd.

But he feels grateful that The Ritual has returned.

It... satisfies him.

* * *

.

He looks at her, his eyes wide in the blackness, as he lies sideways on his bed. He can see her more clearly in the dark than during the day. He wonders what that says about him. He wonders what that says about _her_.

He always felt like an outsider. He _is_ one. Something dark and pliable pretending to be human, pretending to smile, and pretending to be something he is not because Harry's first rule has always been: _Don't get caught_.

But he never told him _what_ he shouldn't get caught _for_.

Humans are tough to imitate with their politeness and courtesy and emotions and relationships and appropriate responses. But he does well enough to fool everyone.

He hasn't committed a homicide yet; killing neighbour's pets doesn't exactly warrant lethal injection.

He is being taught not to get caught for a crime he has not yet committed; all the while he is also being taught how to commit it.

He learns to put a mask today so that he can kill someone tomorrow.

He has put so many masks, one after another, that he doesn't really know what's underneath all of them. Like dresses, he changes at a moment's notice.

In some covert corner of his mind, with overtired neurons and cemented synapses, he thinks that if he were to remove all of his masks, there would be void... nothing beneath it, because _he_ doesn't exist.

Because "_Don't get caught"_ can also mean _"Don't get caught being you"_. And he never stopped and asked for explanations.

But then, he thinks of easy smiles and trust and eager eyes and familiar presence on the floor and fights and trust and hugs and humid warmth... _warmth_, thathe isn't familiar with, that he doesn't expect, but that Deb exudes so easily, effortlessly. He is _someone_ to her. A brother, a friend... Not just a psychopath that needs to be potty-trained, or an unfortunate kid who needs a home. He finds that he likes it. He likes to be _someone_. To be someone to her. It is a proof that _he_ exists. She is the proof that he is gloriously alive, albeit in camouflage. This he likes.

He absently rubs the little nick on his neck.

He decides that if he could ever have feelings, he'd have them all for Deb.

She is asleep. Her mouth is slightly open, a little bit of drool accumulating at its corners. Her hair is long and brown and cascade over her body like a blanket. There are no worry lines on her forehead; there is no tumbling and turning. She is still and calm like the mirror surface of a lake glistening and reflecting the nightsky with _sheer_ adoration.

He thinks that she sleeps like a baby, which is an absurd notion as babies, by default, are fitful and fret and cry and tend to have erratic patterns of sleep.

He thinks that she sleeps like a corpse. Unmoving. Not a flinch or a snore. Peaceful, and beautiful, surreal and holding the secrets to life and death. Never to reveal them. She sleeps like a corpse, he thinks, it suits her.

He wonders why Deb can only sleep peacefully with a psychopath around.

What does that say about him? What does that say about _her_?

* * *

.

"Do you think Dad loved Mom?" She asks.

He nearly sputters. This is the downside to continuing the Ritual. This is the downside to having Deb sleep on his bedroom floor. They would mostly be talking about inane things and he wouldn't be really paying attention and then out of the blue, she would ask indecipherable questions. Questions with no correct answers and he would have to think and prod his brain for adequate responses in the middle of the night.

"Yeah, of course."

She appears satisfied by the answer and ponders on the ceiling wall.

He is starting to relax when she shoots her next question, "Do you think he still loves her?"

This time he does sputter. He really cannot answer it and so he groans, hoping she'd change the topic, "Deb...!"

"What?" She persists. "Of course, he must still love her, because she's his _wife_. I know that. But... Dad, do you think he'd ever find someone else? I mean, he's not exactly active on the dating scene, you know-"

"Deb." He exclaims. He is _really_ uncomfortable with this conversation. And if he could, he would point out the irony in asking a psychopath for insights into emotion. But he can't, so he settles for, "I... I really am not the person you should talk to about this."

"What? Why not?"

"Because a) I don't want to and b) if you hadn't noticed I'm not really an expert on relationships." He smirks.

"Well, a) Fuck you and b) surely, you must have an opinion." She retorts.

He doesn't really want to talk about this. "I'm not... not- uh, I don't know much of love, Deb."

"But, you have a girlfriend. Don't you love her?"

"I, uh-" He doesn't think that 'a good cover for my psychopathic tendencies' equate to 'love'. He should lie and tell Deb that he does. But he doesn't want to lie to Deb, not about the unimportant stuff anyway. Instead, he stutters, "I- Er, No- not really...I-"

She doesn't wait for him to complete his sentence. "Dad?"

Yes, he does. He does have feelings for Harry, as much as he can. Harry is his guardian, his mentor, his dad... He respects him and depends on him. Maybe even loves him. But the only words that form in his larynx are: "I... I, uh-"

Debra raises a perfectly arched brow in disbelief.

Her voice lowers a few decibels as she asks, "Me?"

"I- I-" He should answer yes. He is free to lie to her about the important stuff.

Thankfully she saves him from answering. She sits up, punches him on his arm and harrumphs, "I love you, asshole. And you love me too."

And promptly lies back down.

The statement is so Deb-like that it is a relief to him. He absently rubs his arm (Deb _is_ strong when she wants to be) and edges of his mouth twitch up in a slight smile.

She knows that she made him smile. She grins.

She looks very young with her hair spread out and entangled and slow casual grin adorning her lips which is in direct contradiction to the gleeful manic gleam in her eyes.

She doesn't even have a dimple, but she looks very young.

She grins. And strangely the atmosphere changes.

And he can't help but wonder how it is so.

A grin... and the dense melancholic air which was taut with tension turn suddenly lighter and mellifluous.

The harsh sepia night light stuffing the room morphs to a softer rosier radiance permeating the room.

Her wild, long, tangled and frayed dark-brown hair which slithered about the floor like tentacles, like Medusa's hair, abruptly transforms into an angel's halo framing her radiant face, shimmering like vague dreams in daylight.

How a grin can morph everything, he does not know.

A wisp of brunette hair falls in front of her vivid green eyes and within seconds it is tucked away. She looks confounded and uncertain and he suddenly realises why.

She didn't tuck her hair away. _He_ tucked her hair away.

Suddenly there is something stifling in the air, something tense, like a coiled snake.

His hand is still hovering near her face, and her baffled gaze abruptly shifts to his fingers. He swiftly retracts his hand, startled. There is an audible pop that seems to ricochet in the room.

Each movement is exaggerated, drawn-out. Each breath sounding extremely loud, each blink is like a slow sashay of long eyelashes. He could hear blood rushing in his ears and for once, the rhythmic bass of heartbeat didn't comfort him.

Nobody moves. They remain unmoving like statues carved out of stone in an abandoned temple, stillness giving rise to a hushed piousness. They stare at each other in fearful silence. Frozen, yet suffused in an air of meaning and symbols. Like words in a poem. Obscure in their stasis, till the corroding smog of tension curling in the air gradually dissipates.

Even someone as emotionally stunted as him knows that this is (not normal) awkward. This is somehow unusual. And he is reminded once again as to how _abnormal_ he is.

He averts his gaze to the walls and she clears her throat.

* * *

.

He sees her sleeping on the couch sideways, facing the television. The diffused light from the television is playing across the features of her skin and engulfing her face in a gossamer veil of spectral glow. There are cartoon characters chasing each other on the bridge of her nose and the arch of her cheekbones.

He _sees_ her and stops in the middle of the room, lost. He had come into the living room wanting to get something or do something but for the life of him, he can't figure it out.

He is standing transfixed, watching Debra sleep open mouthed and snoring slightly, and he is turned to another piece of furniture in the room. No purpose and no movement, just another inconsequential background detail.

"_I love you, asshole. And you love me too."_

Her voice comes unbidden into his mind, like some plastic wrapper drifting into the frame due to unruly winds.

He moves to stand in front of the couch all the while his eyes are trained on the outlines of anthropomorphic animals running around her face. His shadow blocks the light and her face is plunged into darkness. It is appropriate, he thinks, after all any light in her life is bound to be obliterated by him.

He kneels down, partly in reverence at a vision so delicate yet beautiful, partly so that he is nearly eye-level with her. His hand move out of its own accord and palms her cheek, his thumb tracing the hardness of her high cheekbone. She must have felt his cold fingers because her forehead wrinkles. But she doesn't wake.

This is weird; he doesn't feel the urge to strangle her. He doesn't want to dig his nails so deep into her skin so that it draws blood. He doesn't want to take a knife and shred her just to see the torpid flow of blood as it drips from the couch and soaks the carpet.

He wants to preserve this moment, take a photograph. But not just the vision. The feel of her warm live self under his hands, the bleary sounds of the television playing the background in a low volume combined with the sharp ticks of each second passing by and wheezy whisper of each breath he lets out. He wants to preserve all this.

He looks at her again and thinks _This is Debra_. The thought should be a deterrent to whatever he is about to do or feels, but it isn't. He keeps thinking _This is Debra. This is my sister. This is Deb. This is Harry_'_s daughter. This is Debra. Debra. Deb. Deb. Deb..._ But this thought just seems to reassure him. It just reaffirms whatever it is that he is feeling.

This is Debra. Deb. Harry's daughter. The only person in the world who loves him. He thinks that's nice.

He blinks, his pupils widening, eyes straining to see her face better in the dark shadows cast by him. His hand still on her cheek. His thumb still tracing her cheekbone.

Her lips are dry.

"Dexter."

The stern voice ricochets in the room, louder than the bleary squeaky sounds from the television yet quiet enough to not wake Deb. His name is both a reproach and a question. The stern voice belonging to Harry.

Harry.

Dexter turns his head around to notice Harry standing at the doorway staring at the sight in front of him. Dex lets his hand fall and stands up, turning around to face Harry fully. He was never good at reading human emotions, but looking at Harry's face then he knew that it lacked _any_ expression. Harry just stared at him as if he were a stone statue, his expressions frozen yet grotesque somehow. His gaze harsh and pitiless as the sun.

He stares right into Harry's eyes, all sense of self-preservation or fear evacuating his body, escaping like sands slipping through his hands. He should be afraid now, another mask removed, another facet of the monster is in plain view. But he isn't afraid. No. Oddly, he feels liberated. The adrenaline is shooting through his veins and he feels dangerous and volatile. His face is a mirror reflection of Harry's face, frozen and stern, as he asks in a steady and unaffected voice, "Yes, Harry?"

He had meant to ask _Yes, Dad?_ but it came out _Yes, Harry?_.

Harry was his Dad.

He had meant to ask _Yes, Dad? _but it came out wrong.

It came out wrong, so very wrong.

Something about the about the sparse room, the cold furniture, the gossamer patterns of light playing across Deb's face had made it come out wrong.

There is a flicker across Harry's face. Something dark and thin like disbelief clouding his eyes. Harry sets his jaws and answers. "Nothing. It's nothing."

Dexter is amazed, Harry _almost_ seemed afraid of him. Harry was never afraid of him. Not during their 'hunting trips', not during their sparring sessions, not when he tried his chokehold on Harry and definitely not when there was manic gleam in his eyes whose meaning Harry knew very well. Harry was never afraid of him. Never.

Yet now, he seemed like he was.

Dexter watches as Harry turns around and goes back without so much as a backward glance, his hands running through his hair and his shoulder tense beyond belief.

Debra opens her eyes blearily to a stout shadow which partially protects her eyes from the blaring brightness of television screen. She blinks once or twice as the cloud over her brain clears and she recognises the shadow.

It's Dexter. Standing and staring at an empty hallway, his mouth set in a grim line.

Her lips are dry. She licks her lips and asks, "Dex?"

His head turns around and his eyes fall on her face which is partially obscured by his shadow. He answers gruffly, "You fell asleep on the couch. It's late. You, er, you should go to bed."

Deb must have felt a covert tension suffocating the room. She asks, again, "Dex? What _is_ it?"

Her brother's shoulder falls. His voice is crisp as he repeats his father's lines.

"Nothing. It's nothing."

Then, he adds as an afterthought, "Go to bed." He briskly walks out the room and goes to his own.

Confused, she stares at her brother's retreating shadow. What the fuck?

She gets up from the couch, switches off the blasted TV and gets ready for bed.

_His shadows flow like silk,_ she thinks as her fingers rub her cheek, absently.

* * *

.

.

* * *

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